Fishing last February— My
daughter Christy caught 30 white bass and 40 black bass on light tackle on this
February afternoon last year. She released them all.
Some
folks said they enjoyed last weeks outdoor quiz questions, so here is another
one I learned recently from the National Geographic channel… Experts say the fastest mammal is
the Cheetah, found in Africa. They
say the second fastest mammal is found in the U.S. It is… (answer at end of column).
I
always thought the fastest runner in the Ozarks was a wild turkey gobbler, as I
have seen several outrun my shotgun blast rather easily. It is nice to sit around during this
colder weather and think about April turkey hunting, a calm sunny dawn with
redbuds blooming and birds singing and the slightest hint of green everywhere
you look.
Probably
won’t be exactly like that though.
My pants will be wet up to the knees from the dew, and the gobblers will
be with 15 or 20 hens each. A
storm will blow in about mid- morning, with hard rain and lightning and I will
slide halfway down some hillside because I stepped on a wet rock, then have to
find my shotgun, which slid farther than I did. Knowing that will happen makes me wait until later in
the morning to hunt turkeys in the spring.
I
can go out about 9 or 10 and have similar problems with gobblers. They often ignore me just as well at
noon as they do at dawn. But after
sunrise I can look off into the southwest and see if a storm is forming. You often can’t see those big cloud
banks if you are tripping around and falling off the porch at 5 o’clock in the
morning, trying to carry too much stuff to the pick-up.
I
probably fish more than I hunt in April because my boat runs great at 10 a.m.
and I am not so likely to fall out of it as I am right at first light. I have found that in April, the best
fishing is found after I wake up, and I often don’t wake up very early. That is often because I write until 1
or 2 in the morning and when you do that and then get up at 5, two or three
cups of coffee do not make one whit of difference.
I could
handle it all when I was 25 years old but not now. If I want to get up at 5 in the morning, I really need to
get to bed about 5 in the evening.
I have found too, that there are no mushrooms in the morning until the
sun gets up well. I know this
because for the last 5 or 6 years I haven’t found a single mushroom until I go
out and look for them, which is always about 10 in the morning.
I
never get caught in a storm while fishing or looking for mushrooms, because
while I fear nothing in the world, man nor beast, (with the exception of
grizzly bears and Islamic terrorists) a bolt of lightning from a distant black
cloud strikes terror in my brain and legs, which, working together, have saved
me in the past.
It
could be that the fastest I have ever ran was when a bolt of lighting hit a
barb-wire fence I was astraddle of one summer evening in my youth. And in a lightning storm, I can still
be called a good sprinter.
That
awful fear of lightning developed early!
Because the night I was born, way back there in the Yukon, (Yukon,
Missouri) lightning hit the small farmhouse where I came into the world and
killed two chickens in another room at the exact second I drew my first
breath.
Similar
circumstances occurred when a great comet appeared the exact time of Mark
Twain’s birth, and didn’t come back around until decades later. When it appeared a second time, Mr.
Twain croaked. I guess you know,
since I am so much like him, how I am going to go out… in a great flash of
lightning.
You
may laugh at that, but one of the old timers at the pool hall said he was born
two weeks early because his mother was kicked by a horse, and he was afraid to
get near one, knowing that. They
all stopped laughing when they found out that the old guy had died from a kick
in the head… you guessed it… from a horse.
But
all that really doesn’t have much to do with turkey hunting. Actually, since April is so far away,
my attention right now is on the month of February because I have enjoyed some
of the best fishing of my whole life after four or five days of unseasonably
warm days in mid to late February.
Fortunately, for you readers, you will read every detail of the best of
those trips, right here in this newspaper unless I get hit by lightnin’!
************************
If
you intend to reserve a table at our grizzled old outdoorsman’s swap meet, you
need to let me know soon. We are
going to have about 45 free tables for anyone selling anything pertaining to
hunting, fishing or the outdoors.
We will do this at the Brighton Assembly of God Church, where we have
held it for the past 8 or 9 years I think. From 8 in the morning until about 2 in the afternoon the
last Saturday of March.
**************************
I will be taking groups of
people out on Truman Lake via pontoon boat again in the spring to see that
remarkable natural area over there that has lots of history, wildlife and huge
timber. We have a fish fry on the lake at noon, do some hiking and then
come in as the sun sets.
This year we will do things differently, by opening up our Panther Creek Lodge
and cabins to participants on Friday evening, having breakfast there on
Saturday morning and coming back there on Saturday night to spend the night
again. On Sunday morning visitors can roam around the property at Panther
Creek and see what we have accomplished before going home.
This trip once cost 40 dollars per person but this year there will be no charge
to anyone. If folks want to donate any amount to our program there for
underprivileged kids, that will suffice. The Saturday trip to the lake is
limited to fifteen people because that is the number legally allowed on our
boat, so if you want to join us, get your name on the list soon by calling me
at 777-5227 or emailing lightninridge@windstream.net or mailing a postcard to me at Box 22,
Bolivar, Mo. 65613. Dates will be in March and April, decided about a
week in advance according to the weather forecast.
*******************************
The Lightnin’ Ridge Magazine’s
spring issue will come out in March.
For the first time in fifteen years it will be all color--88 pages of
great reading. If you want to get
one, call my executive secretary at that phone number above. Ms. Wiggins says we have just had
hundreds of orders for it; and my latest book as well, “Little Home on the
Piney”. She says that each will
make a wonderful Valentine’s Day present for an outdoorsman’s wife.
The second fastest mammal…
the pronghorn antelope.
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